'Winter' Butternut Squash F1
A quirky vegatable. The premise was to see that if planted could it be grown in Blighty. There are apparently, varieties bred specifically for Britain. I'm not sure if that is the one that I have planted. I did try and find the Hunter variety, but didn't come across it at first. These are really quite a greedy vegatable, and will need a lot of feeding and watering. They have gigantic leaves, and these lose water in the heat. You can grow them across the dirt or up canes. I have opted for the later. The seeds were actually quite quick to germinate, that was suprising actually. At the moment-late may-the plant is starting to flower. It is still however, quite compact, but leafy. The flowers are there, but I am not too sure as to how hardy they are. There are is one singular bulbous flower, that I assume has the bulbuous shaped butternut behind it. thrity_four_2011.jpg thrity_two_2011.jpg thrity_six_2011.jpg I am growing this up a cane, as I have planted it into a container. That is also probably why it is so small. Rumour has it these things can spread like triffids. These are winter squashes as that is when you are to use them. Summer squashes are marrows and courgettes . These require between six and eight hours of sunlight a day. This is the first butternut (late may), lest I am counting my chickens. The plant iself has got a little taller, and there are more vines and creepers. There are a number of other flowers as well. These, however, do not have the bulbous bit. This is an early plant, I had this on a window sill from february march. Coventionally, you wouldn't plant them out til the end of may after the frost's have gone. *Huge bit of insight found this week. Most fruit bearing plants have both male and female flowers. The female flowers are the ones that produce the fruit. Now, how does this matter, in relation to our butternut? Well, the flower above, is the female flower and is found on the main trailing limb. This is, as you can see, where our would be butternut squash is. However, we have a problem. What we need, is some fertilization, to ensure that we do actually get a butternut. At the moment, as you can see, the flower is closed. No entry basically, and the male ones are also closed. Depending on what species we have, pollination will happen as per birds and the bees. The bees will transfer the pollen from the male flowers-found at the centre of the plant-to the female flowers. All sounds so simple. However, what may be required is, assisted polination. What this involves, is as follows. *Removing the male flower, and opening (Or you can leave it in situ, I think) *Using a paint brush, brush off the pollen inside. *Transfer and rub onto the internal organs of the female part. This is an area of concern! There are two female flowers now on the plant, and lots of male ones. Not one of them, is open! This is the butternut squash in early august. Is more or less six foot tall. Previously, there had been fruit that had appeared, but with the failure to pollinate, simply went yellow and withered away. There are now a number of baby fruits appearing, but these will need to be pollinated as and when. This will be either done by a cotton bud, or with any luck by flying insects. butternut.jpg|flowering flowering_buttetnutt.jpg|flowering blooms butternut_yellow.jpg|yellow butternut squash These are the second batch of Gladys babies. She is now well over five foot, so today I have pinched out the top growing vine (10/0811). I'm not sure that will do her any good, but at least if she stops trailing, she might be able to concentrate on her fruits. There has been alot of drama with Gladys. Today (18/08/11) I found that three flowers had opened up. There are however no male flowers on the plant. However, a handful of male pumpkin flowers have been saved containing pollen. With the aid of a cotton bud, their pollen has been tapped onto the female BNS flowers and they are now closed with elastic bands. I'm not sure that this will work. It has worked on the pumpkin, in that there is one large swelling pumpkin. So I will be very intrigued to see whether this will work, and whether the fruit will even ripen. The summer is as good as over, but these are not harvestable til the winter. There are the five fruits, that are still there (06/09/11) but they haven't swollen. So whilst they were pollinated, the swelling process hasn't occured at all. Given the trials and tribulations of this plant over the last year, I am debating now whether it worth sowing next year!